CHARLES EMILIUS GOLD (1809-1871)
Rangitoto volcano (260 m - 850 ft)
New Zealand (Rangitoto Island)
In Mt Rangitoto Auckland Scoria 1960, central cone, watercolor, Alexander Turnbull Library
The mountain
Rangitoto volcano (260 m - 850 ft) is a shield volcano with a symetrical cone situauted inthe center of is a volcanic island in the Hauraki Gulf near Auckland, New Zealand. The 5.5 km wide island is an iconic and widely visible landmark of Auckland. Rangitoto is the most recent and the largest (2311 hectares) of the approximately 50 volcanoes of the Auckland volcanic field. It is separated from the mainland of Auckland's North Shore by the Rangitoto Channel. Since World War II, it has been linked by a causeway to the much older, non-volcanic Motutapu Island.
Rangitoto is Māori for Bloody Sky, with the name coming from the full phrase Ngā Rangi-i-totongia-a Tama-te-kapua ("The days of the bleeding of Tama-te-kapua"). Tama-te-kapua was the captain of the Arawa waka (canoe) and was badly wounded on the island, after having lost a battle with the Tainui iwi (tribe) at Islington Bay.
The artist
Charles Emilius Gold ) was a New Zealand soldier and artist. He was born in Woolwich, Kent, England on 6 January 1809. Gold purchased an ensign's commission in the 65th Regiment of Foot on 20 March 1828 and a lieutenant's commission on 28 October 1831; from 1830 until 1837 he was stationed in British Guiana and the West Indies; he served in Canada from 1838 till 1841. He rose, by purchase, to captain (1836) and major (1844) in the regiment, and was promoted to lieutenant colonel on 30 December 1845. While serving in Kingston, Canada, Gold married Eleanor Felicia Askin Geddes on 1 June 1839. They were to have 15 children.In September 1846 the regiment was ordered to New Zealand and Gold and his family arrived at Auckland on 4 January 1847. He soon afterwards commanded a detachment of troops accompanying Governor George Grey to the Bay of Islands, in the aftermath of the northern war.
C. W. Richmond, who met him in 1857, described Gold as a 'pleasant gentlemanly soldierly fellow'. Garrison life during the years at Wellington was uneventful, but Eleanor Gold in particular cut a figure in the social life of the township, serving as hostess to her husband, and raising contributions for the Crimean patriotic fund.
During his periods of leisure Gold executed a number of idiosyncratic watercolour views, which show a rather childlike technique but in some cases a memorable, rhythmic vision of vegetation patterns. The paintings are largely of scenes around Wellington, Auckland and New Plymouth.
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2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
